Even the survivors came out bloody

I know you've been waiting for an update, and here it is (unfortunately). Simply stated, I’m not happy with this comic. To be completely honest, I haven’t been for months and months. I've been rewriting and struggling to come up with the best solution for both myself and you, the reader. I keep circling around the idea that I need to simply pull the trigger and pull this comic offline.

I began posting The Watcher of Yaathagggu in 2010 as an effort to keep my head in a better mental space. Without going into too much detail, my life and my planned future had been upturned. I had left a long, abusive relationship in a hurry and wanted to prove to myself that I deserved to do what I love in life instead of wasting time trying to fix everything that wasn't wrong with me. Also, it’s super hard to really consider killing yourself when you've got weekly deadlines and a grandiose story to tell.

I probably shouldn't have started with a long-form comic, because as it turns out, I didn’t really have what it took. I didn't heed other cartoonist’s warnings that your first few comics will suck. I was different, I told myself. I am a unique snowflake. Turns out on the internet, there’s a blizzard of unique snowflakes and I’m not an exception.

In the following years, I’ve recovered myself and launched into a new path. I've made significant progress to make it so that I can spend my day doing things I enjoy. This has taken considerable sacrifices on my part and therapy to teach myself that square pegs don't go in round holes.

I’ve grown to be a better human in the last four years, but that’s also the problem. This comic was started when I was still struggling to find myself and the stories I wanted to tell, and I’m paying for it now. For the last 6-10 months, I’ve been writing and rewriting this comic and coming to dead end in the 3rd act. Unfortunately, I made too many mistakes in the beginning to be able to fix things as I went. I do want to tell this story, but I need to put in more work on the front end to make sure it’s a story that we'll both finish and feel satisfied with the end product.

What does this mean for you? First, I’m taking the Watcher of Yaathagggu down. This doesn't mean I'm giving up on comics or even this comic in particular. I'll post up small snippets of updates and work in progress shots while I'm working on it. Second, I’ll be doing a number of short comics to build up my story-telling skills. For the last few years, I've been accumulating one-shots that have fallen through being published for a variety of reasons.

With my deepest appreciation, thank you for reading this comic up to this point. In a lot of ways, this comic and you guys have kept me alive. I’m sorry for disappointing those of you that are still around, because you are the best readers ever.